


Turns Our Hearts

by sturms_sun_shattered



Series: Rito Chronicles [1]
Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Action, Angst, Friendship, Gen, Grief, Hopeful Ending, Interpersonal Issues, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, Reflection, Self vs Community Interests, Tragedy, Worldbuilding, population crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:21:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22212478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sturms_sun_shattered/pseuds/sturms_sun_shattered
Summary: Days before Link awakens, the Rito Village suffers with problems of it own: generations are getting smaller, tragedy strikes their own, and villagers are at odds.19 August 2020:Significant clean up to bring this in line with the rest of theChronicles.
Relationships: Amali/Kass (Legend of Zelda), Saki & Amali, Saki/Teba (Legend of Zelda), Teba & Harth
Series: Rito Chronicles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1757296
Comments: 26
Kudos: 67





	1. Dark Wings

**Author's Note:**

> This is a part of several concurrent BotW works which simultaneously and spontaneously began to appear every time I sat down at my computer.
> 
> There is some minor character death upcoming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Changes: Mostly just a clean up and some added detail for clarity. I started using POV headers in _Sky, It Falls_ and I like it, so I think I’m going to amend all my multi-POV fics for consistency. Thanks to unavoidablekoishi for helping me with this first chapter and finding the things my stubborn brain refused to see :)
> 
> Content warnings for character death and grief.

**Kass**

The pleasant spring breeze blew softly through Kass and Amali’s roost, bringing with it the scents of pine and lake water and the promise of summer warmth. Kass sat on his alone, composing a verse in the brief time he had on his own while Amali was out and his daughters played on the stacks. No doubt the sunshine of a spring day was a relief to them after the long dark of winter.

Kass turned as heard the flutter of wings and the click of talons on the landing at the back of his family’s roost. Setting aside his stylus and notebook, Kass stood to greet the messenger.

“Mimo, we have a door,” Kass intoned as the black-feathered Rito hopped down from the back landing onto the floorboards.

“You see, this is why I want to give this whole thing up,” snapped Mimo, rummaging through the satchel he wore, “nobody is ever grateful that I flew across half the continent just to bring a letter. Do you know how much stress is involved in this job?”

“Ah, Mimo,” said Amali flatly as she entered the roost, “I thought I heard your dulcet tones.”

“Here’s your letter, Kass.” 

Mimo held up the sealed envelope expectantly, but quickly withdrew when Kass reached for it.

“What?”

“I’m not a public service,” said Mimo, holding out his hand for payment, “this came from Kakariko Village: ten rupees.”

“Kakariko Village...” Kass repeated breathlessly. 

Suddenly light-headed, Kass was forced to sit down. Amali paid Mimo and snapped the letter away from him.

“Perhaps you ought to try meditation!” Amali told Mimo in her sweet-sharp tone and passed the letter to Kass.

“Perhaps. Or perhaps I ought to get out of here before our esteemed elder reminds me that I haven’t yet taken a wife,” groused Mimo, taking off from the back landing so he might avoid entering the village.

“For a messenger, he cares very little about the goings on in his own village,” Amali remarked, “what news has he brought?”

Kass slowly broke the seal—familiar to him, though he was having trouble placing it with all the haze that had taken over his senses—and unrolled the letter. Inside was that dreaded news that he had often expected, but never quite believed he would see. He read the opening line once, twice, three times to be sure his benumbed mind had properly understood it.

“Lady Impa sends word that...my teacher has passed from this world,” said Kass, his voice catching in his throat.

“Oh my love,” said Amali, enveloping him in her wings, “I’m so sorry.”

“He was...quite old...” was all Kass could manage as tears welled in his eyes.

The whole world had gone strangely silent for Kass. He pressed a hand to his chest and stood with a deep breath.

“I...I must go. I may not yet have missed the funeral,” said Kass, trying numbly to decide what was required for this task.

“Speed is of the essence,” Amali agreed, “pack your things and I’ll collect the children for goodbyes.”

Calming himself with a few more breaths, Kass packed a small bag with a thin hammock, brown and white woven blanket, and a few provisions. He paused over the slightly dusty case of the accordion. His duties as a father had taken up so much of his time in recent years that he had hardly touched the instrument. It was with mixed feelings that he strapped the case to his pack.

“Papa!” came the cries of tiny voices.

“You’re leaving us?”

“Papa, must I still practice the song?”

“Where are you going, Papa? Are you crying?”

“Yes Cree, Papa is crying,” he said heavily as he crouched down to meet them all at their level.

“Why?”

“I’m afraid I have lost a dear friend, and I must go and pay my respects,” he wiped at his eyes with his wing, “I may be gone for a while, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you. You must listen to your mother...and yes, Genli, you must still practice your song.”

He combed his beak over each of their downy little heads as they clung to him. Saying goodbye to his girls made him want to cry nearly as much as his teacher’s passing. When he had squeezed them all tightly and reminded them he loved them, Amali shooed the children out of the roost and husband and wife held each other for a moment.

“What of—?” Kass glanced up to Harth and Antilli’s roost.

“Antilli is under our care. You see to your grief,” she said, smoothing the feathers on the sides of his face and neck.

Kass—reluctant to leave when a member of their village was suffering so—paused a moment and wondered if he was wrong to favour the dead over the living. Antilli was a childhood friend of Amali’s after all.

“Kass,” said Amali, “there is nothing you can do for her. You need to honour your teacher.”

Kass, though still reluctant—perhaps looking for an excuse to address the strange numbness that would surely turn to pain—left their roost. He walked up the empty boardwalk to Revali’s Landing, took a good look around at the village he had come to call home, and took off in the direction of the Rito Stable and a road that he could follow to Kakariko Village.

**Teba**

Late that evening, Teba watched as Tulin and Molli played together while he conditioned his bow. The two seemed blissfully unaware of the danger that Antilli faced—for that, Teba was grateful. Gossip had spread quickly as it always did in the tiny village, and the rest of the Rito seemed subdued, tense, waiting for an outcome. Even Kaneli had spoken to Teba of his worries about their dwindling population.

By the time Teba had announced that it was bedtime and tucked in the chicks, he was unable to suppress the feeling of dread that had settled in his heart. He tried to push it aside, to bury it with the other worries that he had trapped behind his armour, but as he watched Harth and Antilli’s daughter settle beneath her blanket, he could only imagine the next few days to be ones of terrible sadness for her.

As it was, Molli was excited about the sleepover and begged for a story. Teba stared at her for a moment, unsure of how to handle the request; Tulin had never once asked him for a story. The only one Teba could think to tell them was the one about the bear and the bokoblin.

“But you mustn't go near bears because they’re dangerous, right?” Molli asked.

Teba was at a loss, bombarded by questions at every pause. His friends’ daughter was certainly more talkative than his own son.

“So are bokoblins, stupid,” Tulin pointed out.

“Tulin, don’t call Molli stupid,” sighed Teba.

“Sorry.”

“Perhaps you should apologize to Molli rather than to me.”

Tulin propped himself on his wing in his hammock and looked at Molli who was playing up her performance as the hurt and slandered child.

“Molli, I’m sorry I called you stupid,” Tulin intoned with the insincerity only a child could manage.

“Apology accepted,” she said snarkily.

“Now, it’s time to sleep,” Teba told them seriously, “I don’t want to hear any whispering.”

They both agreed and bid him goodnight and Teba returned to his bow, though it hardly required any more care. Saki returned to their roost after the children had dropped off to sleep, he face lined with exhaustion. Teba had not been expecting her to leave her friend’s side.

“Antilli?” Teba asked as they sat down to a meal.

Saki shook her head grimly. As she joined Teba with her plate, she seemed unable to do more than pick at her roasted salmon.

“We have done our best, but the egg will not shift, and we fear to break it. Misa remains with her, and Harth will not leave her side...but there is nothing more to do than wait.”

Teba knew, as all Rito did, the risk a bound egg could pose. As he poked solemnly at his own fish, Saki glanced toward Molli, asleep in the guest hammock.

“Does she suspect anything?”

“No,” said Teba, “and she is too young to carry such a burden when we are so uncertain.”

Saki’s face told Teba she was less uncertain that he.

“Teba...Harth needs you,” she sighed.

“What about you? You’re the healer—”

“This has been very difficult for everyone, but Harth has not slept in days. You are his closest friend, you must convince him to rest.”

“Would that I could convince Harth to do anything,” said Teba dryly.

“Teba—”

They were interrupted by the arrival of youthful figure in their doorway. Fyson looked panicked and Saki and Teba stood to meet him.

“Saki,” he panted, “Mother has sent for you...and you Teba.”

Saki set aside her plate and rushed from their roost, pushing past Fyson as she fled down the boardwalk.

“Someone must stay with the children...” Teba protested.

Teba was fearful of what he was might see and hesitant to wade into the emotional fray, even for Harth. Give him lizalfos, moblins, even those beasts of legend and he would swoop in without a second thought, but the terrain of heartache and grief was no place for a warrior such as himself.

A terrible screech from the neighbouring roost rent the air and Teba and Fyson started. Miraculously, neither of the children had stirred, Teba saw as he glanced back over his shoulder.

“I’ll stay,” said Fyson in an unusual moment of maturity.

Teba nodded; no doubt Fyson was fearful of these emotionally charged situations as well. Teba followed the boardwalk down to his friend’s roost and hesitated at the entrance. The scene was chaotic—on the boardwalk, Amali held Misa as she wept. Inside, Antilli spasmed on the floor as Saki called out to her, brushing her wings with her hands, face taught in desperation. Harth cradled his wife’s face, pleading in a voice which cut to Teba’s soul.

“What’s happening?” asked Laissa as she approached the scene, her hands over her beak.

The commotion woke Rito on lower levels and Teba watched numbly as Amali attempted to hold back the gathering crowd. The close proximity of the crowd seemed to suck the air from the boardwalk and the light from the lanterns. Teba took a deep breath as he would before battle and pushed his way into Harth and Antilli’s roost. Antilli had fallen still. 

Teba looked to his own wife and Saki shook her head at him, tears welling in her eyes as she glanced back at Harth. Harth still begged his love to stay with him, stroking her face with shaking hands. Teba could hear Kaneli on the boardwalk outside, dispersing the crowd.

“Saki, please! Do something!” begged Harth in a voice raw with emotion.

Instinct outweighed cold rationality and Teba knelt beside his friend and wrapped a wing around him. Harth fought the touch, weeping openly, but Teba pulled the struggling figure close. They sat like that; silent sobs wracking Harth’s body as he seemed to melt with sorrow. Teba torpidly stroked Harth’s hair as he wept, unable to unfix his own burning eyes from the sight of his wife holding Antilli’s limp wing as she cried.

“I’m so sorry, Harth...” came a voice from the doorway.

“You!” Harth shrieked at the portly figure of the elder.

“He hasn’t done anything, Harth,” Teba said, trying to keep his friend from causing a scene he might later regret.

But Harth was grief-stricken. His body now kindled with jerky energy of rage, Harth pushed Teba away and closed the distance to the elder, screeching inconsolably. Teba leapt to his feet to hold him back.

“All he wants from us is offspring!” Harth’s scream echoed crassly into the night.

“There are so few Rito left in the world and we have just lost one of our sistren. Don’t make this about natalism,” said Kaneli softly.

Teba pushed between Harth and the elder and pressed his friend back with a hand on his chest. It was far too late to stop the anger unleashed; Harth was fired up after years of shame over the difficulty he and is wife had had conceiving. Teba knew Harth’s family was hardly the first to have so many unhatched eggs—indeed, nearly all of their generation seemed to suffer abnormally small families. Teba often wondered if it had something to do with the Collapse.

“We had a child and all you ever asked was for the next one! This is the result of the fucking next one!”

Teba caught his wife’s eye and her expression said that there had been no evidence of anything other than unhappy misfortune that Antilli’s egg had bound. It could happen to any egg.

“Elder, perhaps you should go,” suggested Teba, without turning around.

He kept his fingertips on Harth’s chest as the other Rito postured and shifted, glaring at Kaneli through Teba. The elder’s talons clicked with an uneven gait on the boardwalk as he retreated to the boardwalk and returned to his own roost.

“I’m going after him,” Harth growled, his brow furrowed predatorily.

“Don’t threaten the elder,” said Teba

Teba feared to point out that Harth was drastically misplacing his anger in his despair. He desperately hoped that this volatility that had come over his friend had flown its course, though he suspected that Harth would not soon come down from this madness.

“Harth,” said Saki as she stood and took Harth’s hand, “sit your vigil with your wife.”

As Saki pulled him to Antilli’s still form, Harth broke down completely, clutching his wife’s lifeless hand and pressing it to his cheek. Saki lit a lantern on the railing of the roost to lead Antilli’s spirit to the open air. Even as tears built in her own eyes, Saki sat down beside Harth and stroked the side of his face. Teba was frozen to his spot in admiration of his wife’s composure.

“Do you want us to bring your daughter back tonight?” she asked Harth gently.

Harth shook his head. Teba almost couldn’t blame him; how he would ever tell Tulin if it were Saki who had been lost didn’t bear imagining.

“I must—say my goodbyes now,” Harth said, inhaling sharply.

Saki nodded, and pulled him close. Harth rested his head against Saki’s shoulder and Teba knelt on his other side and wrapped a wing around his back. Teba could only stare at what remained of Antilli. She looked almost unrecognizable after her battle—her feathers had lost the sheen of health weeks before and lying still like this, Teba thought she simply looked...wrong.

As Harth managed to regain some control over his tears, he shrugged off Teba and Saki’s wings and reached out to straighten his wife’s braids.

“Please bring Molli around in the morning,” he requested hoarsely as the two stood and left him to his rites.

“Of course,” Teba promised.

Teba rested his wing on Saki’s shoulder as they returned to their own roost. Fyson met them on the boardwalk just outside. The look on his face suggested that he had heard most of what had transpired, and he left them with an awkward nod as they silently entered their roost.

Unable to untangle the horror and grief of the night, Teba squeezed Saki in his wings as tightly as he could. She reached up to stroke the fine the fine feathers on his cheeks, her own face tracked with tears.

“We should rest,” she whispered, “Harth and Molli will still need us in the morning.” 

Teba swallowed hard against the rawness in is throat and nodded. 

That night as he gently swayed in his hammock, Teba found himself unable to close his eyes, and stared into the darkness above. He couldn’t keep track of how long his body resisted sleep, but he could hear Harth’s choked sobs on the wind even as he finally drifted off.


	2. The Cave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fyson resists adulthood; a funeral leaves everyone drained

**Fyson**

It was barely dawn when Teba arrived for Fyson. Normally, Fyson would avoid Teba; the warrior belittled him for not becoming a guard, then told him that he did not have the warrior’s spirit anyway. Fyson was annoyed by everyone’s gap in logic of ‘do something or you’re terrible at it’. He had never had anything against training as a warrior, but his mother had prevented his entry into their ranks and he was not inclined to fight over it.

“I don’t see why the elder thinks _I_ need to go check the tomb,” Fyson complained as he and Teba landed in front of the Rito funerary caves.

The Rito resting place was a series of caves that wound for miles beneath the rocky badlands south-west of the village. The caves were not creature-proof, and Teba and Fyson had been set with the task of ensuring that Rito remains were not scattered gracelessly throughout. This had traditionally been a chore of the women in the village, but Fyson had heard that the elder had charged the warriors of the tribe to take over responsibility when one woman had disappeared more than a decade before. She had never been seen again, and it was widely speculated that she had simply left. 

Fyson sighed as Teba handed him a torch. He hoped his opportunity to leave was coming soon, though it would hardly be today with Teba around. No, more likely Teba would drag his limp corpse back in his talons and smugly proclaim that he had returned the defector.

“I imagine that you were selected because you are always to be found sitting on your tail-feathers and complaining that you have nothing to occupy your time,” said Teba darkly as they entered the cave.

“That’s not what I’m complaining about,” Fyson said under his breath.

Teba glanced back at him, but said nothing as he cleared the debris from a wall sconce and lit the tallow candle fitted within. Fyson huffed another sigh and followed suit, searching for the sconce on the opposite wall. As the cave grew brighter, Fyson could see—disturbingly, he thought—the shrouds which covered the decay beneath, draped gently atop ledges in the stone. Most had greyed with age, covering little more than dust. Some of the more recent shrouds had troubling rust-coloured spots staining them and covered shapes that more clearly resembled Rito. 

As they went deeper into the tunnels, the light of his torch illuminated a number of disturbed bodies and bones that were scattered off the ledges and across the floor. He jumped at the sight.

“I’m done with this,” Fyson ground out.

Teba caught him through his sleeve-cap. He struggled for a moment, but knew that he would not escape without tearing his clothes...then his mom would really be on his case.

“You are on the verge of adulthood, and as a result you are expected to take on the responsibilities of an adult,” Teba said.

“Fine. But not this.”

“Death is a part of life, and coming to terms with that will give you focus.”

“So now I need focus? Gathering bones is meant to give me that?”

“I will not let anything harm you here,” Teba promised solemnly, letting him go.

“ ‘cept maybe you,” Fyson said.

“Only if you refuse to help,” Teba snapped.

Teba lit a sconce on the wall and rested his torch on an empty ledge as he began to tidy the bones, moving them out of the view for the funeral procession. Fyson followed Teba’s example, wondering morbidly if he had known the owners of these desecrated resting spots—wondering if one was his long departed father.

“Why do we lay our dead in a cave?” Fyson asked, distressed by the thought of animals tearing at Antilli’s body.

“Ancient Rito tradition was to lay the body out for predatory birds, but as monsters populated the wide open spaces, we feared it would attract our enemies to our villages...or so I’m told.”

“But this?”

“You hear the wind whistling through the cave?”

“Of course,” said Fyson.

“It takes with it any remaining spirits left clinging to their bodies and flies them to the arms of the Goddess.”

“Do you really believe that?”

Teba covered the bones he had replaced on a ledge and looked at Fyson.

“It doesn’t matter what I believe. In times of loss everyone wants something to cling to for comfort.”

Fyson kept quiet for the rest of the excursion. He had been surprised about the sadness in Teba’s voice—a more honest tone than Teba had ever adopted with him—so unlike the disdainful remarks which were usually directed at him. Fyson was disturbed by it, and he did not want to hear it again.

**Saki**

Despite the solemnity of the day the sun shone warm in the clear sky, the light glinting off the sand coloured rocks that rose above the funeral procession as they filed their way down to the tomb.

Saki held Molli in her wings as she and Teba followed behind Harth, who bore the enshrouded body of his wife in his wings at the head of the procession. Molli rested listlessly against Saki’s shoulder, still sniffling and hiccoughing from the news of the tragedy she had received mere hours ago. In the end, Harth could not even bring himself to say it, and Saki was left with the terrible responsibility of explaining to Molli why her mother would not wake up.

Tulin was also solemn, having never known anyone to die before. He kicked at the stones along behind them to distract himself, until Teba whispered for him to cut it out. Saki was grateful that he was not bickering and running about like Kass and Amali’s girls, with only their mother to keep them in check. Presently, Fyson was gathering one of them off of a ledge and returning her to her spot in line, no doubt at the direction of his own mother.

As they neared the entrance to the funerary caves Harth stopped briefly, clutching Antilli’s body as though he were about to run away with her. Teba placed a firm hand on his shoulder to steady him, and Harth entered the tomb and laid Antilli in her resting space.

Kaneli took his place beside the body and began the ritual. After hours of cleansing and wrapping the body, the rite of death ended with a short ceremony.

“Today we gather to bid farewell to our sister Antilli.”

Saki stared at the wrapped body on the ledge, curiously numb after the hours she had spent cleansing and smoothing the plumage of the shell where Antilli had once resided. She was certain that the pain would return later.

“Four feathers, of four dear friends to fly you on your way,” Kaneli said.

“Hold Molli’s hand,” Saki whispered to her son as she set Molli on the ground beside him and stepped forward to honour her friend.

Beside her, Teba unflinchingly plucked a flight feather from his wing and placed it on the shroud where it gleamed whiter than the fabric. Amali did the same, adding an elegant green feather to cross Teba’s, though Saki noticed that Amali held the spot on her wing to stop a drop of blood that had escaped with the plucked feather. Saki followed suit and added her pale lavender feather to those of her friends, grateful for the sting in her wing as she plucked it. 

Harth expressionlessly plucked his blue-tipped feather. As he placed the dark feather across the other three he leaned close and whispered to his wife, “I would pluck them all to keep you here.”

He remained stoic—perhaps worn from too little rest the last few days—though Rito around him wept openly. Even Teba seemed more emotional than usual, blinking a little too furiously, his beak clamped tight.

“Dear Antilli, we commend you to the arms of the Goddess that your spirit may fly in eternal peace,” said Kaneli.

A moment of silence followed, and the Rito began to shuffle out, but Harth stood like a stone before the ledge where he had rested his wife’s body. Seeing his hesitation, Saki asked Misa to take the children ahead of them, and stood by his side. Amali joined her, still staunching the blood flow on her wing.

“Don’t remain out after nightfall,” Saki heard Kaneli warn Teba quietly as her husband came to stand on Harth’s other side.

After standing in silence for a long while, Harth turned his head to stare at Amali. His eyes didn’t look quite right and his feathers sat tufted and ungroomed.

“Where’s your husband?” he asked Amali hoarsely.

“I’m sorry. He didn’t want to leave, but he was summoned to his own grief.”

This seemed profoundly funny to Harth whose body shook with a silent mirthless laughter. Teba, Saki and Amali exchanged nervous glances.

“Harth...” said Teba tentatively.

“ _It should have been you_!” Harth suddenly screeched at Amali, his voice echoing through the whistling caves.

“Goddess...” cursed Teba.

“Harth, you have no right to say that!” Saki intervened.

“Why not? She would have married me had that foreigner twice her age not come along! Then at least Antilli would be here!” Harth ranted, the feathers sticking up at the back of his head contributing to his aura of madness.

“Harth, stop this...” Teba said softly.

“Well you’d still be short a wife!” Amali snapped venomously at Harth as she turned.

Amali left the caves, her beak clenched in anger and grief and the whistling wind whipping at her braids. Saki made to follow her out to the dusty stretch where the world seemed to end, but Amali stopped her.

“See to Harth,” Amali told her testily, “he seems to have lost his mind.”

When Saki turned back to Harth, he had crumbled to the ground, weeping inconsolably. Teba was at a loss and stared at his friend helplessly. Saki stepped in and crouched in front of Harth.

“Hey.”

Harth did not respond. He kept his head down while his body shook with grief and Saki didn’t know whether she should feel pity or anger for his display.

“Hey!” she slapped him.

He looked up and held his cheek in shock.

“You listen to me. Whatever this thing about Amali is, leave it in the past. And no matter how sad you are, you don’t get to wish for someone’s death! We are the last four of our generation to survive the Collapse and that binds us!”

Harth looked properly ashamed of himself as he knelt on the stone floor, his tears rolling off his feathers as he choked back the remainder. With a wiffling breath, he stood and moved to the ledge where Antilli's body rested. He bowed his head for a moment then pressed his forehead to Antilli’s through the shroud. Holding her face through the linen cloth, he gasped back a few silent sobs and whispered something for only his wife to hear.

After what felt like and eternity, Harth straightened and collected himself with another shaky breath. His expression resolute, he headed for the cave’s opening, and Saki exchanged a worried look with her husband as they followed him. Harth crossed the hard-baked dirt and stood at what seemed to be the edge of the world and stared out at the sheer stone faces of distant shores.

“Harth,” said Teba, his voice wavered with uncertainty as Harth stared out into the unknown.

“I need to go,” he said, the raw tension in his voice so unlike him.

“What about your daughter?” snapped Saki.

“I d—just please. I need to just...do anything else right now,” he said, swiping a wing across his eyes.

“And what of your responsibilities to your people?” Teba pressed.

“Making bows for a limited market? Fuck ’em. I’m sure you have everything covered as usual.”

Teba sighed deep in his chest, his brow furrowed in annoyance.

“I’ll come back. I just want to deal with this without...everyone.”

“Then let me come with you,” Teba nearly begged.

“I’m not sure you can this time,” said Harth distantly.

He leapt suddenly from the edge and took flight. Saki grabbed her husband’s wing to keep him from following as Harth swooped upward and headed north.

“We can’t let him go like this! He’s entirely unprepared and he’s blinded by grief!” said Teba, yanking his wing back.

“He’s stubborn, but he’s not exactly known for planning ahead. We probably need only wait until he gets hungry.”

“This isn’t funny, Saki,” Teba said harshly.

Not for the first time, Saki felt that her husband’s loyalties lay more strongly with Harth than with her. As ever, she put it aside, reminding herself that life with Teba had not been her first choice either. They had both committed to rebuilding the flock as the Rito faced down extinction.

“Fine. Do as you wish,” she said sharply, allowing her diplomacy to slip, “there’s a little girl who needs my care anyway.”

She turned her back on Teba and took flight with a leap from the ledge just as Harth had moments before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm considering posting a chapter or two in a complimentary story (same universe) before returning to this one. Don't worry! I have quite a bit written, I'm just playing around with the organization a bit.


	3. Out of the Mountains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amali fumes (and considers parenthood and grief). Gesane guards (and has to answer an uncomfortable question). Then something else happens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for a brief moment of non-graphic suicidal thoughts

**Amali**

When Amali had returned to the village from the caves, she found Misa looking harassed with seven children in her shop. Molli, Cree and Kotts sat on the floor and cried as Tulin and Notts tried helplessly to comfort them. Misa was distracted by Genli and Kheel, who climbed over everything in the shop—Goddess, Amali was embarrassed.

“Girls!” she snapped in a voice she barely recognized.

Her own children froze. Perhaps they recognized the deadly seriousness in her voice because they all filed to the front to the shop, shame-faced.

“I want you to go home and sit in your hammocks. I will be there shortly and we will discuss what happened here.”

Notts led them up the boardwalk, their little heads hung in disgrace. 

_Good,_ Amali thought, but immediately felt ashamed. 

Amali was still seething from Harth’s asinine comment. It was true that their families had discussed the possibility of the two of them marrying, but it had never been a sure plan and she had certainly never suggested to Harth that she had wanted to be with him, let alone _marry_ him. Add onto that, that he wished her dead in Antilli’s place! She tried to dismiss it as the grief clouding his mind; right now it was easier to feel anger and pity for Harth than to think about the new void in her own life.

“Misa, I’m sorry that my children behaved so badly. I will gladly pay for anything they have damaged,” she said dutifully.

“They’re children. We have few enough of them, we must cherish the ones we have,” Misa said, though Amali suspected she would find a bill at her door the next morning; widow of her brother or not, Misa always collected on her debts.

Amali returned home, still trying to control the current of emotions which roiled in her chest. The five children sat on their hammocks in silence, unused to Amali raising her voice. She did not love parenthood the way Kass did, she knew, but she did her level best to never make her girls feel the way she had felt under her own father’s tyranny. She looked at the pouting faces in a half circle around her.

“You treated Misa’s shop disrespectfully,” she said, “tomorrow you will write her a letter of apology.”

“Yes Mama,” came five staggered agreements.

“And you behaved very badly at the funeral. I spoke to you before we left and told you of the solemnity of the occasion, and yet you ran about like bokoblins. I think you know that this was not acceptable behaviour. You will sit in your hammocks until dinner, and I never want to have a repeat of this. Is that clear?”

They nodded, Kheel sniffling and Cree looking at the floor in shame.

“Mama, your wing is bleeding,” said Genli.

“Yes.”

“From the feather you pulled out.”

“Yes, Genli.”

“Why did you do that?”

 _She is just a child,_ Amali reminded herself. She tried to steady her voice and answer this question rather than snap at her to keep quiet and sit out her punishment. Oh, how she wished Kass was here to address such matters.

“Because when someone we love dies, a part of us goes with them...and losing a feather reminds you to live with their absence. One day it will grow back, and you learn to live with your sadness.”

“When will you not be sad?”

Amali clenched her beak, unable to give an answer, too difficult to explain how the sadness became a little piece of pain that you learned to live with. Her father had—in one of his more tolerable moments—told Amali that grief was like riding the wind: when you first experience it, it is as if you’ve hit a sudden squall, but as you live with it you begin to see the currents in the distance and prepare yourself to meet them, though you can never really avoid them.

“I’m going to make dinner. If you put one toe out of line, mine will not be a happy face,” she said instead.

Saki found Amali weeping quietly by the cooking pot as the sun dipped in the sky. Without saying anything, she slid down beside Amali and put a wing around her shoulders. That tempest had hit. 

**Gesane**

Teba had met Gesane on his watch for the last two nights. Normally, Gesane would have welcomed the company, but Teba had been in a foul mood since the funeral and Harth’s departure. He would never say it of course, but Gesane suspected that Teba came out to the stacks to take his frustrations out on the guards as much as he came out to watch the skies for his friend. Actually, implying such had landed Mazli with a cracked beak, so Gesane was double-sure to watch what he said around the normally controlled warrior.

“Quiet night?” Teba asked.

He always asked in that tone, never really asking what he wanted to know: whether or not Harth had been seen.

“Nothing to report,” Gesane confirmed.

“The elder...” Teba made a small sound in his throat and looked distinctly uncomfortable.

Gesane looked at Teba; he suspected he knew what this was about.

“Whatever it is, just say it.”

“He wanted me to find out why you and Bedoli have postponed taking your vows.”

Gesane sighed and ruffled a hand through the feathers on the back of his head. The truth was, he had been set up with Bedoli by their parents, but he had always uncomfortable with it, having grown up with her. Not to mention, Bedoli was scatterbrained, scathing, and she and Gesane had never agreed on any topic in the time he had known her. 

Gesane had just come up with the courage to ask for leave to find a wife outside of their village, but it felt wildly inappropriate to do so in the midst of everyone’s grief. He wasn’t even sure there were more Rito out there, but Kass had to have come from _somewhere_. Even Kaneli had been born elsewhere.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” said Gesane.

“Do you hear that?” asked Teba, having lost what little interest he had in their conversation.

Gesane listened. He could feel rather than hear a rumbling. Glancing around he saw that the bridges between the stacks quivered in a way that he could not attribute to the wind.

“Goddess, what is that?” Gesane exclaimed, pointing south to the orange light snaking up a tower which had emerged on a mesa.

“I’ve never seen such a thing...but, we may have other problems,” said Teba, a look of dread crossing his face as he gazed north at the Hebra mountains.

**Harth**

The first night Harth spent in the Hebra wilds had been harrowing. Unprepared for cold or enemies, he had nearly met his end while trying to to stay out of reach of the stal monsters that sprung from the snow. Somehow, he stumbled upon a cabin which he had never seen before. It had clearly occupied by Hylians at some point, judging by the register on the desk.

Cautiously, he decided it might be in his interest to follow their example and keep warm for the night. He struck a flame in the fireplace to thaw his frost-bitten feet. Uncomfortable though the Hylian bed was, Harth’s exhaustion caught up with him, and he collapsed and drew the chilly blankets around himself. While his mind despaired the end of life and the nature of nothingness, his body finally went limp and he fell into a long slumber.

He was confused to when he awoke the next day as the sun was setting. So desperate was his body for rest that he had slept the day away. He spent that night awake in the cabin, cooking the provisions that had been left behind and thinking of his last days with his wife.

Antilli had been lethargic for days before she had called upon Saki—it seemed she had also suspected that she was egg bound, but had sought to deal with it herself. Saki and some of the other women of the village had taken Antilli to a hot spring, mixed her mineral-enhanced beverages, and tried to gently massage the egg loose. The last few days as she was succumbing to the infection it caused, Harth held her and refused to listen to her worst-case-scenarios, refused to believe he might lose her.

Harth stared into the fire. His eyes burned as he wondered how he was going to raise Molli without her. If he disappeared out in the wilderness, Saki and Teba would surely care for Molli as their own. Perhaps she would be better off with them anyway, Harth thought wretchedly. He could barely keep himself presentable right now.

As morning light peeked in through the windows Harth lay on the bed, exhausted by grief. He thought idly of simply wandering out into the cold and letting it take him. He had heard that freezing was just that easy...but he couldn’t be bothered to move from the uncomfortable bed. The day wore on, and Harth dreamt Antilli was lying beside him each time he closed his eyes. By sunset, the gnawing hunger spurred him into some sort of action.

As the sun dipped down beyond the horizon, Harth left the cabin to gather a few provisions. While scrounging for berries and fallen wood, a shaking beneath his feet startled him into flight. Curious about the source of the quake, he beat his wings and climbed higher into the sky for a better view. What he saw was beyond his comprehension.

Ancient abandoned shrines, which had dotted the landscape since time immemorial, suddenly glowed orange, their lights cutting through the blowing snow. Joining them, great towers rose with the same orange light snaking up their bases. Harth could see a number of these rising far off into lands where he had never dared venture. 

Then came a screech which shook Harth to his core. The hum of propellers echoed through his chest long before the sound reached his hearing. Above him, a behemoth of a bird—unlike anything he had ever seen—glowed pink and screeched again. It made its way steadily for the Rito village. He realized this must be Vah Medoh, the Divine Beast who was rumoured to have come to rest somewhere in the mountains a century ago.

Torn between fear and curiosity, Harth approached the beast as close as he dared. Medoh screeched, the sound echoing through Harth’s insides. As the cannons attempted to lock onto him, he plummeted back down into the woods. Below him, the trees burned where the shot had impacted, and Harth marshalled his strength to return to the village and warn them of the impending danger.

Medoh began to circle above the great pillar and Harth took this chance to manoeuvre his way back to the village. Wind whipped through his unkempt feathers as he grew closer to the stacks. He heard rather than felt the target upon him and dived sharply to avoid it. As he dropped down toward the second stack, he felt the hot lick of fire and heard the crack of falling spruce trees. He landed roughly beside the salmon pond, rolling in the grass and searching for Medoh in the skies. 

Despite the smell of the burning timber, it seemed the danger had passed. Medoh had returned to patrolling the skies rather than targeting Harth, so he lay on his back for a moment and tried to catch his breath.

“Harth!” 

He heard a call from behind him and saw Mazli running across the bridge from his post at the foot of the village. Harth pushed himself up on one wing and turned to see the familiar face, albeit with a painful-looking crack running up his beak.

“Your face alright?” Harth asked as Mazli approached.

“What? Oh...it’s fine,” he said, absently touching his beak, “what was that?”

“I’m not entirely certain...but I think it was—”

“Vah Medoh,” came Teba’s voice as he and Gesane crossed the opposite bridge.

“Teba,” sighed Harth with relief.

“Are you hurt?” Teba snapped, reaching for Harth’s hand.

“No,” he said tersely as he took Teba’s outstretched hand and let him haul him back to his feet.

“Good, we have a report to make,” said Teba grimly, “Gesane, Mazli—resume your posts.”

Gesane and Mazli returned to their watch as Harth followed Teba across the bridge and up to the boardwalk.

“How did this happen?” asked Teba.

“What do you mean?”

“What did you do to wake Vah Medoh?”

“Wait...just hold on.”

Harth grabbed Teba’s wing and pulled him to a stop.

“You think I had something to do with this?” he asked incredulously.

Teba yanked his wing from Harth’s grip.

“I think it’s a strange coincide that you’ve shown up with a Divine Beast on your tail.”

“Because it was targeting my tail!” Harth exclaimed in exasperation, “Teba, I came back because it rose out of the mountains and tried to blast me out of the sky!”

“And if it had?”

Harth was momentarily taken aback by Teba’s question; he wasn’t entirely sure where Teba was going with this.

“Is that what you’re worried about?”

Teba shoved Harth back against the stone pillar, his wing across his clavicle. Harth—limp with shock—did not struggle against his grip. Teba’s dark brows were lowered in anger and Harth was momentarily afraid.

“Your daughter has been asking about you every hour of every day since you left! How can you come back here and be so... _flippant_?”

“Get off me,” Harth spat.

He shoved Teba away, the sudden heat of anger flaring in his throat as he smoothed the feathers on his neck and stared at his friend in disbelief.

“If I’m being _flippant_ , it’s only because I’m surprised by the whole situation. As to my absence...I didn’t find any peace in my solitude if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Your daughter needs you! She thinks you’ve left her!”

“How can I do anything for her...when I can barely see through the haze of my own grief?” Harth returned, his voice raw with emotion.

“You can’t just abandon your duties,” Teba grumbled, wending his way up the boardwalk.

They were approaching the higher levels of the boardwalk. Having heard the commotion of Medoh, Rito had left their homes and whispered worriedly with their neighbours as Teba pushed by them.

“Not everyone’s like you, Teba! I can’t just be stoic in the face of everything!”

The Rito around them started at Harth’s outburst, and Teba yanked Harth to his side, no doubt hoping to have a quieter conversation.

“You don’t have to be,” he said under his breath, “just don’t leave again.”

Harth stopped in his tracks.

“Is this about Molli or you?”

Teba sighed in agitation and continued up the boardwalk.

“We have a report to make.”


	4. Bad Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teba runs a training drill to assess the skills of potential fighters.

**Fyson**

His mother’s voice roused Fyson from his half-sleep. 

He lay in his hammock, staring out into the wilds which glinted in the first rays of the morning sun and let his mind drift beyond those borders. The distant spruce trees in Hebra still sparkled with snow as they did all year, but the sight did not charm Fyson; it only made him wish for a new and different view.

“Fyson, I need to open the shop, you can’t laze about here all day,” Misa said, giving the hammock a little shove from beneath as she began to set up for the day.

Fyson rolled over as the hammock swayed. He looked down into the shop and watched his mother take butter wrapped in waxed paper from a woven basket and arrange it on her wares table. Evidently, she had already been down to the stable to meet a Hylian merchant. Towering over the Hylians, Fyson had witnessed her intimidate countless merchants into a better deal.

“It’s the crack of dawn...when did you get up?” Fyson groaned.

“I heard something interesting this morning,” she said, ignoring his inquiry.

Fyson looked at her over the edge of the hammock, still comfortable and warm under his woven blanket.

“Bedoli’s engagement with Gesane was broken.”

“That’s too bad,” said Fyson carefully.

“You know what that means...”

Fyson looked at her, eyebrows raised.

“No. Not a chance,” protested Fyson as he came to understand her meaning.

“Oh come on, she comes from a good family.”

“Mom, she’s so much older than me.”

“Well, my dear, it’s not as though you have a lot of choice...”

“I have the choice to not get married and fuck off and do my own thing,” he said shrugging.

“Of course you don’t have that choice” she said, laughing as she set the empty basket in the corner, “my boy’s going to run the shop.”

“Mom—” said Fyson, gesturing to the door where Verla stood, looking rather more solemn than usual.

“We’re not open yet,” Misa told him abruptly.

“I haven’t come for supplies,” he said.

“What is it, then?”

“Teba is holding a skills assessment and basic training at the Flight Range,” Verla replied hesitantly, “he elder has given it his blessing, and Teba requests all fighting-age males attend,” 

“That’s not Fyson,” Misa told him firmly.

“Fyson was specifically requested as he has done little training with the bow,” said Verla, though he stepped back a little, giving ground to Misa.

“He’s a boy!”

“I’m only the messenger,” Verla protested, his wings raised in defeat.

Fyson—no longer content to let his mother speak on is behalf— pushed aside his blanket and lit from his hammock.

“I’m going,” said Fyson, fishing out his father’s old swallow bow from behind a chest. 

“Fyson!” said his mother desperately.

“Duty calls, Mom.”

Fyson—though not at all interested in learning to use a bow—needed a way to get out from under his mother’s control for a few hours. As he climbed the boardwalk stairs, Verla gave him an understanding clap on the shoulder. Not much older than he was, Fyson had always been fond of Verla.

“Are you alright, Verla?” Fyson asked him, seeing his grim expression.

“I’ll be fine,” he sighed.

From where they stood on the stairs above the inn, Fyson thought he could see Cecili wiping away tears behind the desk inside. Fyson fancied he knew why married couples cried in this village, and more often than not it had to do with unhatched eggs. All the more reason for him to get out of here as soon as he could...

**Teba**

The day had begun clear and cool, but flat, pale grey clouds had rolled in from the mountains before mid-morning. A light snow drifted gently down from the sky and the swirling flakes blew into the Flight Range lodge as they caught in the updraft from the basin below.

Teba and Harth waited for the others to arrive in the warmth of the lodge. Teba—seeing Harth was still in a fragile emotional state—had given him plenty to keep him occupied. As he sat at the back of the structure, fletching arrows and tying them into fives, Harth seemed glad for the mindless distraction. Teba was ashamed for the relief he felt that Harth avoided mentioning Antilli. Every time it came up, Teba could not form words for fear of saying something that might set off a sudden tide of emotion in Harth. 

Teba was loathe to admit that he was entirely unprepared to examine his own grief over the loss; how could he have the space to do so when Harth and Saki had been so much closer to Antilli? In an effort to remain strong for the others, he had resigned himself not to think about it.

For the most part, it seemed Harth was coping well enough when he had something to focus on. Half the reason Teba had come up with the idea of this training session to keep Harth busy. The other half of him was dreading the amount of training that the Rito would need to be an effective force against Vah Medoh when the time came.

Fyson and Verla were the first to arrive—without Misa to Teba’s compete surprise. He had expected a fight with the older Rito over her son’s fitness to participate in such an exercise. The other Rito—youthful guards, semi-retired warriors, inexperienced tradesfolk—began to join them on the snowy ground beside the structure.

“Who’s on watch?” asked Teba asked Mazli as the guard’s talons clattered on the landing.

“Laissa and Bedoli, as you requested,” reported Mazli.

“Good,” said Teba as he stepped out to the landing to address the group, “I’m assuming we’ve heard nothing about when Guy or Kass might return?”

“Better off without Kass,” scoffed Nekk, “wouldn’t know what to do with a bow anyway.”

That elicited some chuckles from the groun, though jokes at Kass’s expense often did. Teba didn’t necessarily agree that Kass was not an asset—he had a surprising skill with small blades—but he couldn’t be bothered to dispute Kass’s inexperience with aerial combat and forged ahead. There were just over a dozen of them against the colossus which circled overhead, and Teba felt there was little time to waste.

“Submit your bows to Harth for inspection; he will give you your allotted arrows and we will begin with target practice.”

The motley group formed a line in front of Harth where had landed on the ground beside the ladder to inspect their weapons. Teba watched Fyson shifting uncomfortably as he followed after Verla, and suppressed his normal instinct to chide the youth; after all, Fyson was present without complaint. Instead, as Fyson joined the end of the line, Teba pulled him aside.

“Teba, I showed up! What more do you want from me?” Fyson hissed defensively.

“Nothing,” said Teba walking him away from the other Rito, “I’m going to run the drill and you’re going to go with Harth and practice the basics.”

“What?” said Fyson.

“I understand that between the loss of your father at such a young age and your mother...well, being your mother...”

Fyson cast him a surprised look and Teba found himself trying to explain.

“You didn’t get the kind of basic training that we did is all I’m saying. Harth is an excellent warrior; he can teach you what you’ve missed out on.”

“Alright,” agreed Fyson, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

Teba stared back at him for a moment, unsure of what else needed to be said.

“Right, good talk,” Teba said, leaving Fyson to Harth so he could begin the trial.

Teba surveyed the remainder of the group on the landing. They had eased up on training new warriors long ago and had begun accepting them on a voluntary basis rather than enlisting every male child hatched to a warrior family. It had significantly depleted their ranks, and Teba cursed himself for allowing such laxity.

“Nekk, you want to go first?” Teba called.

Nekk shrugged. Clearly, it had been a while since had had practised with a bow, but after diving into the updraft, he managed to hit two out of ten of his targets. He landed on the platform and shrugged again.

“I’m not young anymore,” he said by means of explanation of his subpar performance.

For all Nekk protested, it seemed younger Rito could hardly do better. Verla jumped into the range and hit exactly none of his targets. Huck landed an arrow on the very outside edge of one target—which Teba overheard him confess to Verla that he had not even aimed for.

“Gesane?” Teba prompted, a feeling of desperation building in his chest.

The guard leapt gracefully into the wind. Spiralling upward with a neat bit of flying, he unslung his falcon bow to hit six of his targets.

“Not bad! Mazli!” Teba ordered, his confidence in them increasing as Mazli managed eight.

He switched exercises after another few rounds. By the end, Mazli, Gesane and the other guards were regularly hitting nearly all of their targets; Nekk had warmed up somewhat and could manage around half; but Verla, Huck and the other merchants and tradesfolk were still lucky to manage one or two. 

Teba gave them each their own target and looked for good groupings. When that failed, he had them practise quickly unslinging and drawing in the air when it seemed that they were having difficulty with the very basic mechanics of aerial combat. He sent them in rotations to collect the fallen arrows and demonstrated tactics for improving. 

This seemed to go steadily along for a while but as the day grew colder, the not-quite-warriors hit a plateau in both their ability to improve and their attitudes toward the activity. The group broke for a meal, but upon returning to their exercises, it was apparent that any enthusiasm they had had that morning had waned.

The cracks began to show when Nekk stormed off, citing a bad shoulder from years of tailoring. He cursed back at Teba when he shouted at him to halt.

“The only reason you are First Warrior is because twenty houses fell in the lake from the higher pillar!” Nekk shouted.

“How is this about the Collapse?” asked Teba, blindsided. 

“Everything is about the Collapse! Your father was hatched on the lower pillar just like the rest of us; a warrior of low skill and low status who rose to the top because everyone else was dead! And you, Teba, are exactly the same!”

Nekk threw down his arrows in the Flight Range building and used the current to take off back to the village. A few of the other merchants followed after the abrasive tailor, ignoring Teba’s insistence that they stay.

Teba could feel his face contort in anger; he had heard the rumours, that his father was of some distant line claiming relation to Revali. Certainly his father—hatched on the lower pillar as Revali had been—had had more claim to the possibility than most of the Rito who had hijacked the Champion’s name. Teba had never made such a claim himself. By the time he was fledged as a warrior there had been so few of them left that he had never needed to.

“What now?” asked Huck.

“We carry on,” said Teba, though his mood had taken a significant dive.

Teba didn’t see what happened next—and no one claimed responsibility—but Mazli left the range for the lodge, his wings over his face. Teba stepped back into the lodge to find Mazli trying to staunch the bleeding at his beak. Gesane landed and cast Teba a dark look while he helped Mazli find a bit of cloth to hold to the bleeding wound.

“Did someone hit you?” Teba asked.

“You did!” Mazli shouted.

Mazli winced in pain and slid down against the back wall as Gesane helped him press the linen to his face.

“Just sit still,” Gesane told him.

“Don’t tell me what to do!”

Huck and Verla landed at the end of the platform and walked in to see what had transpired, both staring as Mazli pushed Gesane back away from him. Huck took one look at the scene and—without a word—followed his boss’s example.

“Mazli, relax,” Gesane told him.

“Back off,” said Mazli venomously through the bandage at his beak.

“I think we need Saki to stop the bleeding,” said Gesane, still crouched in front of Mazli.

“Verla,” sighed Teba.

“Yeah, I’ll get her.”

“The rest of you may as well go,” Teba sighed as he dismissed the remainder of the group.

The sound of flapping wings and the clatter of talons on the landing heralded Harth’s return.. He stood still for a moment, taking in the scene as Gesane attempted to keep Mazli calm, and Teba tried not to hamper him by interfering.

“What the—”

“Fucking Teba is what!” Mazli groused.

“Oh, it’ll grow out!” Teba returned, growing fed up of Mazli’s whining.

“You did that?” Harth asked him incredulously.

“Where’s Fyson?” demanded Teba, abruptly changing the subject. 

The last thing he wanted to recount was how angry Mazli had made him when he suggested that Teba was worried about Harth. Mazli had always had a way of getting under his feathers.

“About that—”

“Goddess, fuck! Stop touching it, Gesane!” Mazli shouted, interrupting Harth.

Harth glanced at the two guards briefly and returned to his account.

“Misa came by. It got a bit ugly...but uh...suffice it to say, I don’t think we can count on Fyson’s support.”

“Are you afraid of Misa?” Teba chided.

“Are you not?”

Teba sighed; it seemed unlikely that they could bring down Medoh between just the two of them and a few guards.

“Look,” said Harth, “this isn’t the end of the world. We can try again.”

“I just don’t know how we can solve the problem with numbers like this,” Teba said, glancing between Harth and the guards.

“Medoh hasn’t targeted anyone since me. Maybe we should—”

Harth’s suggestion trailed off as Saki set down on the Flight Range landing and glanced around at the group. She looked as though she was about to ask but thought better of it. Instead, she walked past Teba and Harth and knelt in front of Mazli—who continued to protest—and gently pulled back the sodden cloth to examine the bleeding beak.

“Mazli, you did the right thing, but pressure alone won’t stop the bleeding. This will probably hurt,” she warned him, pulling a small, stoppered phial from her satchel.

“It already hurts,” he said.

Teba and Harth glanced at each other and left the lodge. They landed in the snow and went a little way down the path so they could continue their conversation in relative peace. Teba stared at the orange glow of shrine nestled in the the foothills. It only served to remind him of the strange happenings of late.

“Why’d you hit him in the beak?” pressed Harth.

“That was ages ago! I don’t know what happened here, someone probably hit him with their bow!”

They heard Mazli screech his protest of whatever substance Saki had applied to stop the bleeding. Harth glanced back at the lodge briefly, then back to Teba.

“Gesane might be able to help...but I wouldn’t hold my breath,” said Teba, “if we move against Medoh it’s just going to be us.”

“Maybe we should back off of that idea bit,” Harth suggested tentatively.

“Medoh is a menace to our people.”

“Teba, all I’m suggesting is that we focus on a defensive strategy while things are quiet. We can adjust our strategy if conditions change.”

“Hey,” interrupted Gesane from the platform, “if this is done...”

He cautiously left the rest of his statement unsaid. Teba hated when Gesane left things unsaid out of an overabundance of caution nearly as much as he hated Mazli saying too much. Harth stepped in before Teba could respond.

“I think we’re finished.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the physical collapse of a portion of their village is the Collapse that the Rito are concerned with, but they are also having a population collapse because of a lack of genetic diversity. I’m not especially sciencey, but it did seem like the Rito were in trouble based on their numbers...and it gives it some texture.


	5. From Above

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Medoh lashes out; a village meeting gets out of hand

**Saki**

A earsplitting screech rent the air, shivering the roosts and boardwalk with its resonance. Vah Medoh’s shadow blotted out the afternoon sun and it screeched again; its shields were raised and its cannons fired at the Rito who dared invade its airspace.

Saki covered her beak and watched in dread from her roost as she saw the red beam attempting to lock target on the dark-feathered Rito who had crossed Medoh’s path. As the sun emerged from behind Medoh’s wing, Saki shielded her eyes, praying this was not some foolhardy attempt by her husband and Harth to contain the beast. She squinted against the light, unable to determine who Medoh was targeting. 

“What’s happening?” Molli wailed as she threw herself to the floor in terror and covered her head with her wings.

Tulin stood beside Saki and peeked over the wooden railing, transfixed in curious horror. Saki reached down to cover his eyes with her wing; her innocent child was not about to learn what death looked like.

There was a shot, and the figure careened in a poorly controlled fall onto Revali’s Landing and lay still.

“Stay with Molli. Don’t leave the roost,” Saki told Tulin.

“Mom—” 

She did not wait to hear his protest before she hopped onto the back landing and glided the short distance to the figure sprawled on the sun-baked boards.

“Mimo,” she breathed as she recognized the pitch-dark feathers.

“The fuck is wrong with this place?” Mimo groused, rolling onto his back. 

His pant leg was torn and charred and Saki could see through the tattered fabric that his his thigh was blistered and missing feathers where he had been caught in Medoh’s shot. As Saki pulled back ruined garment to better inspect the wound Mimo winced, but she did not assess his his injuries as too severe.

“Anything feel broken? Any pain other than your leg?” she pressed.

“My pride certainly stings.”

Saki grabbed Mimo’s hand and put a wing under his to pull him to his feet.

“Come, we’ll cool the burn.”

“I don’t need your charity,” he snapped.

“Don’t be ridiculous, this isn’t charity; I’m the village healer, after all.”

Mimo grit his beak as they stood, his leg shaking as he tentatively put a little weight on it. As his leg gave out, Saki caught him and pulled his wing over her shoulders. He hissed in discomfort and involuntarily tightened his grip on her.

“I’ll make you something to help with the pain,” she told him.

“What in Hyrule was that?” he asked, clenching his beak.

“Vah Medoh apparently,” said Saki, “the Divine Beast.”

Mimo gave a derisive huff.

“What happened?” shouted Huck as he ran up the boardwalk from the Brazen Beak to investigate.

“Great, just who I wanted to see...” grumbled Mimo.

Huck did not respond beyond a glance at Mimo.

“It’s nothing serious. Perhaps you can help us to the salmon pond?” Saki suggested, already tiring under Mimo’s weight.

“Of course,” said Huck, taking Mimo’s other wing.

Mimo’s complaining dropped off somewhat after Huck’s arrival. He seemed to be trying to distract himself from the pain and not let on to Huck that he was in any discomfort at all. Saki supposed that Mimo must feel embarrassed about not being able to outfly Medoh, though she couldn’t really blame him; Huck was hardly known for his empathy.

“Where’s your husband, Saki?” Mimo asked.

“The Flight Range,” she said, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice. 

Teba and Harth had practically lived at the Flight Range since Medoh’s return, and it had become point of contention in both her marriage to Teba and friendship with Harth. Each day when they set out, she was left alone with two children begging to go with their fathers. She half-expected each night that she would be left alone to raise the chicks on her own. Mimo seemed to pick up on her annoyance anyway and his eyes glinted with a sort of malicious amusement. Huck also noticed and he stopped hiding his distaste for the smirking Rito.

“Mimo, why are you always such a gaping—”

“Huck, thank you for you help,” Saki cut him off as they reached the salmon pond.

Huck nodded to her and headed back toward the Brazen Beak, but not before fixing Mimo with a sideways glance. Mimo sat at the edge of the pond and splashed water on his wounded leg, plucking away the burnt feathers with his face set.

“Why have you come here?” Saki asked him as he plucked another feather and winced.

“I have a letter for Amali...mostly because the Sheikah have me on retainer. Those white-haired bastards are always sending letters to the far reaches of the map, but they pay better than waiting around at stables for someone to show up with a letter. I just have to pop by their village every few weeks.”

“And yet you’re as full of rage as ever. Does the pursuit of rupees not give your life fulfillment?” she asked sarcastically.

“Well, I don’t really want to be here—the elder has put some very unreasonable expectations on me as part of my penance. Someone has to tell Kaneli that there are no Rito women, no Rito at all in this world—except for us,” he said staring at Saki with no hint of mockery in his face.

“That can’t be so,” she said, “Kass—”

“Kass is an anomaly. He said he didn’t know where his tribe was from, and I’ve asked at every stable, every village, every... _fork in the road_. The Sheikah have allowed me to look at their old maps, but all of the settlements...well, most of them don’t even have any remaining ruins, it’s all rotted away. It’s just us,” he finished softly.

Saki could feel her eyes filling with tears but blinked them back furiously. Mimo paced a hand on her wing.

“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you,” he said.

“Well you can’t find what isn’t there,” she responded pragmatically.

“Mom!” called a voice.

Saki looked up to see Tulin running across the bridge as fast has he could. He stayed on the ground instead of flying, just as Teba had made him promise to do when Medoh returned.

“Tulin, where’s Molli?”

“She got upset! She wanted to find her dad and she hit me in the eye!” the words tumbled out as he stood panting.

“Mimo, can you...?”

Mimo shrugged as if to say he wasn’t going anywhere.

“Tulin, stay here!”

Saki ran up the boardwalk, alerting Verla and Huck on the way past the inn and garment shop. Panic built in her chest as she took off from Revali’s Landing. Every moment passed with excruciating slowness as she flew low in the sky to avoid Medoh’s attention, keeping her eyes open for any sign that Molli had left the village. The children were not used to such close supervision or restrictions on their freedom to play where they wanted; Molli was likely just doing what she had been allowed to before Medoh’s arrival.

Saki called out to Teba and Harth as she landed at the Flight Range. Teba emerged from the lodge, his expression dark.

“Saki, what are you doing here?” Teba asked with thinly veiled irritation. 

“Molli. She’s left, trying to find Harth.”

Harth poked his head out of the building.

“Molli’s missing?”

“People are looking—”

“Goddess, Saki,” huffed Teba, leaping into the updraft over the Flight Range basin and turning back to the village.

Harth followed him and Saki did the same, the three of them keeping low to avoid Medoh as they approached the village. Saki cursed her own negligence, but she had not heard Medoh’s screech since Mimo had arrived; Molli couldn’t fly high enough to capture the beast’s attention anyway. By the time they reached the landing, Saki’s mind was racing with the worst. 

Verla called down to them from the boardwalk in front of Kaneli’s roost.

“Harth, she’s here! She’s alright!”

Saki nearly collapsed in relief and followed as Harth raced up the boardwalk to where the crowd had gathered in front of the elder’s home. He pushed through the crowd and took Molli from Laissa’s arms and folded her close to his body, visibly emotional with relief.

“Go back to your business,” Teba said sternly, dispersing the crowd.

“Where was she?” Saki asked Laissa, catching her by the wing as she passed by.

“The ledge above the village,” she replied, pointing up above the elder’s roost.

“Thank you,” said Saki.

Laissa nodded and left the area to avoid incurring Teba’s displeasure. Teba had been particularly volatile since the day that Saki had gone to see to Mazli’s injury at Flight Range. On several occasions, Saki had tried to coax him into telling her what was troubling him, but the only response she ever got was that Medoh was an affront to their safety. She knew that it must be something deeper, but Teba had never been much for talking about his feelings and Saki was too consumed with her own worries to try and drag her husband’s troubles from him.

“I can’t believe you’d be so irresponsible,” Teba said to Saki quietly.

Saki glanced back at Harth, who was smoothing Molli’s crest and reminding her how dangerous it was to fly right now in the gentlest voice she had ever heard him use. Seeing Harth so worried for his daughter awoke that jagged pain she had been trying to ignore since her friend’s death—it was a horrible scream of desolation inside of her, that reminder that the rest of their lives would be without Antilli.

“You have no idea what goes on when you’re off playing at being a warrior,” she told Teba coldly.

“I had hoped that, at the very least, you wouldn’t lose our best friend’s child.”

The sickening acidity at the back of her throat nearly choked her. Fighting that hot surge of anger, Saki turned her back and walked down the boardwalk before she said something she couldn't take back.

**Kaneli**

That evening Kaneli called for a village meeting near the guard’s post at the foot of the village—the only place that where everyone could be accommodated at once. He had even sent word down to the stable and they had sent Ariane as their emissary. She arrived with Gesane as her escort, the two talking easily, a small smile gracing Gesane’s normally serious face. When Gesane noticed Kaneli watching them, he excused himself to return to his post on the bridge to the mainland. Perhaps Kaneli would follow up on that suspicious behaviour later.

“Why’s she here? This is a Rito problem,” said Nekk, narrowing his eyes at Ariane.

“I’m the representative from Rito Stable. As we live and work and trade in your lands we have a vested interest in the survival of your village,” she said politely, not wavering under the glares of the Rito who towered over her.

“She is here at my invitation,” Kaneli told the group, “it is symbolic of the continuing friendship between the village and the stable,” 

A round of mutters cycled through the assembled Rito.

“We have a serious issue, and we need the Stable Association to communicate the dangers we face here so that others in Hyrule might consider their safety when visiting,” said Kaneli.

“Others from Hyrule visit?” guffawed Cecili, “Nobody’s been to the inn in months! And why should they when they can sleep in that reeking horse-barn down the road!”

“I direct visitors your way regularly. It’s hardly my fault that your behaviour is so inhospitable,” Ariane defended herself calmly, though Kaneli did not miss her quick glance toward the bridge as she eyed her escape route.

“I fear we’re straying from the point of the meeting, that is to acknowledge the dangers of Vah Medoh,” Kaneli called over the chatter, trying to regain order.

“And what would you have us do about Medoh?” Teba asked.

“Stay away from it,” said Kaneli emphatically, “it doesn’t shoot when you don’t enter its airspace!”

“Mimo was shot down this afternoon! It hardly does us any good to stay away from it if we don’t know the danger!” shouted Huck.

“I think the point the elder is trying to make, is that we _do_ know about the danger, Huck,” said Mimo dryly from his perch on the stone outcropping where the path gave way to the bridge.

From there, the meeting once again lost its thread and descended into chaos. The Rito chattered and debated amongst themselves and Kaneli could pick out little of value in the murmurs of the crowds.

“Weren’t you banished?” Laissa hissed at Mimo.

“The restrictions on my return have been mostly lifted in the interest of communications,” he told her.

“Please! Your attention!” Kaneli tried to rein in the crowd, but the cacophony continued over him.

“But we should still do something!” Huck insisted.

“One of our kids is going to get hurt!” Misa exclaimed.

Fyson sighed at his mother’s fearful prediction and left the meeting, taking the boardwalk stair two at a time. Following his example, Amali ushered her children up the stairs behind him, perhaps not wanting them to see adults behaving as children.

“I will see to Vah Medoh!” called Teba in a strong, clear voice that cut through the noise of the crowd.

The chatter stopped at the declaration as the Rito turned to regard their First Warrior. Kaneli sighed and rubbed his forehead in irritation as Teba came to stand at the head of the gathering.

“I am a Rito warrior of a proud line of Rito warriors stretching back to the time of the departed Champion Revali! It is my duty to defend my village with my life! I will take down Vah Medoh!”

Kaneli schooled his expression at Teba’s arrogant pronouncement, not wanting to humiliate his protégé in front of his peers, no matter the foolishness of his plan. In the crowd, Saki in the covered her face with her wings and Tulin bounced up and down excitedly beside her. Harth pushed through the villagers to come to Teba’s side.

“Where you go, I go,” vowed Harth as he faced his friend.

Harth clasped Teba’s wing at the elbow in a show of brotherhood and Teba returned the gesture to cheers from the crowd. Reluctant to dash the good spirits of those assembled, Kaneli saved up his admonishments for later. As the villagers began to disperse—hope having overtaken their fears—Kaneli approached Teba and Harth.

“Please come to my roost when things have calmed down,” Kaneli said, resting and insistent wing upon Teba’s shoulder.

Kaneli caught sight of Saki’s worried expression as he passed and made his way slowly up the steps to the boardwalk. He would allow none of this nonsense—Teba and Harth were in the prime of their lives and could not be expended so recklessly as they were willing to expend themselves. When he returned to his roost, he lit the lanterns in and sat back in his rocker to await the arrival of the two warriors.

“We will investigate the mechanisms of Medoh tomorrow,” announced Teba as they stepped inside.

“Put away these notions heroism,” said Kaneli firmly.

“We have a plan to disable Medoh’s cannons,” Teba told him.

“And then what? Only the Champions could board the Divine Beasts, so you will not be able to shut it down.”

“What is it that you know of Divine Beasts?” asked Harth.

“I know that two foolish Rito are no match for one!” Kaneli snapped.

“We can’t live in the relative peace that we had before Medoh appeared,” said Teba harshly.

“Certainly not, but we cannot live as though the Collapse or the Calamity did not wipe out so many of our number! We cannot afford the loss of two lives for your own foolish egotism!”

“Didn’t I say it?” said Harth, his expression hardening, “he’s all about reproduction.”

“Harth, I dread the day when you might be considered to sit in this seat and direct the last days of your tribe,” Kaneli sighed.

“Well it’s Teba you’ve groomed for it anyway,” shrugged Harth.

“And a right good job I seem to have done!” Kaneli snapped.

“I do not envy or desire the role of Elder,” Teba told him stoically.

“I don’t either right now! If you don’t care for my rulings then oust me! But no one has stepped forward for consideration of my position! You all placed me here to lead the tribe and advise on matters that affect us all, but at every turn you two protest!” exclaimed Kaneli.

“If you are here to share your wisdom, then do so. So far you have only told us what we can and cannot do,” said Teba.

Kaneli sighed deep in his throat, trying to reestablish some sense of calm. Though Kaneli had always thought Teba far older than his years, his inflexible code of honour threatened to undo him and blinded him to more pragmatic solutions to nearly every problem he faced. He worried that if he could not get through to his stubborn protégé, Teba would meet the same grim fate that his father had.

“I know it feels like you are making the difficult decision for the good of the village, but just because it is difficult doesn’t mean it’s right. Vah Medoh is best left to its own devices while it is not actively doing harm.”

“How can you say that?” scoffed Harth, “Medoh _actively_ targeted Mimo and my daughter could have been next!”

“I cannot command you, only advise you—don’t throw your lives away,” Kaneli begged.

“Thank you for your advice,” said Teba coldly.

Teba turned and left the roost, Harth following him out. Today, the two warriors looked hardly any different from how they had as children, Kaneli thought bitterly as he watched them disappear down the boardwalk.


	6. Help When You Need It Most

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teba and Harth attempt to subdue Vah Medoh as Harth struggles with his own oppressive grief.

**Harth**

Saki had not let Teba return to their roost that night. She sent them away, telling them that she had only just got the children to sleep...oh and also did they both realize that they were being completely selfish fools?

Even Harth was having second thoughts in the comedown from the meeting, but Teba insisted that they were doing the right thing and Harth found himself in no position to argue with his friend as they bedded down at the Flight Range for the night. Teba slept easily, but Harth was nervous. He was a good flyer and had been an active warrior in his youth—though what were bokoblins and lizalfos compared to a Divine Beast? Perhaps this was what he needed though—a foe, something to conquer, something to fix his attention upon. Certainly, he had never thought of death when he fought monsters with Teba and the other warriors when they were young—what they had done was noble and necessary—just as this should be...

“Harth.”

As Harth opened his hopeful eyes at the sound of his wife’s voice, he realized he must have slipped into sleep sometime in the night. 

“Harth, the sun has risen.”

The bleariness of sleep gave way to consciousness, and he nearly wept to see it was only Teba waking him to eat. Harth sat up and glanced around the Flight Range lodge from his hammock, a rare break in the clouds allowing the gentle morning sun to brighten the snowy world around them.

“What’s wrong with you?” Teba asked gruffly, his mouth half-full.

“Nothing.”

If Teba suspected that Harth was still overwhelmed with loss nearly every hour of the day, he said nothing. Harth had his doubts that Teba even had the emotional capacity to understand that his whole being hurt. Early on, he had been filled with a numb disbelief that he had to fly through life without Antilli, but now the pain had begun to set in. It was as though his body could register the loss of her presence; a gaping hole through which the wind howled seemed to be cut from the world and somehow it was always beside him no matter where he stood. His mind was more preoccupied with the thought of her than it had ever been while she lived. Surely, he was meant to have something to help with this agony?

Teba must have noticed some change in Harth’s general demeanour.

“Harth, I’m concerned your heart isn’t in this. I can do this myself if—” 

“No, Teba. If you go, I go,” he said; he had resigned himself to follow Teba long before Medoh had begun to pose a problem.

“Then we go,” agreed Teba, though his voice has also lost the enthusiasm he had had at the meeting the night before.

They checked their bows and bomb arrows before they leapt into the updraft to ride it high into the sky. Swirling in the wind, Harth felt free for a moment; the pain that had held him captive was replaced with the mission. Teba whistled for Harth to circle to the other side as they flew closer to the ancient machine.

If the beast had looked colossal from the ground, it was inexplicably enormous from where they circled above, and Harth felt his heart constrict in awe of the creature. As he and Teba approached from above, Medoh’s shields came up and its targets fixed upon them. Harth drew his bow and let himself begin to fall, trying to get in close enough for an effective shot. He released, but his bomb arrow exploded impotently upon Medoh’s shield. He slung his bow, spread his wings and began to climb once more.

“The cannons!” Teba called, swooping by.

“No kidding!” Harth yelled back.

Teba landed a shot, but to little avail. The cannon targeted Teba, who dodged the blast only by plunging into a dive at the last second.

“It’s going to take more than one shot! They’re regenerating!” Harth shouted, the sound of the propellers nearly drowning him out. 

“We must coordinate our efforts,” Teba called, reclaiming his altitude just out of range of the cannon.

Harth swooped in Teba’s direction, but was momentarily distracted by what he thought was the light from a cannon. Glancing back to see if he was being targeted, he saw it was a light between Hyrule Castle and Death Mountain. He had certainly never seen that—

The moment of stillness was all it took for the cannons to lock on to Harth. He tried to dodge, but he was caught on the edge of the explosion. Harth’s world was consumed by flames.

“Harth!”

He was going down, his feathers on fire, his left wing useless. As he spun down toward Lake Totori, Harth tried to stretch out his injured wing to slow his descent, but he merely floundered as the wind caught his right wing.

“Antilli...” he whispered, waiting for the water below to swallow him.

“Wrong.”

Harth’s moment of acceptance was cut short as Teba gracelessly caught his leather armour in his talons. The two spun out, buffeted by the breeze, and landed on the road in sight of the Warbler’s Nest. Teba rolled across the grass beside him as he lost momentum, and Harth hit the back of his head hard on a rock as he slid to a stop through the hard-packed dirt.

Harth’s entire body ached from the ordeal. Opening his eyes, he could see he was no longer on fire though the smell of burnt feathers and flesh still lingered. As he fought the urge to black out, Harth touched the unpleasent crispness of the burnt feathers on his wing with a sharp gasp. He lay on his back, shaking and probably concussed, but he didn’t think that he had suffered any broken bones.

“Teba,” he said in a voice that did not sound like his own as his friend’s face appeared above him.

“What were you thinking?” Teba grumbled, helping Harth sit up.

Harth closed his eyes and held his head as the world spun around him.

“I was thinking...where did that light come from?”

“What light?”

“It looked like...maybe I was seeing things,” he said, doubting his perceptions after the fall he had taken.

Harth swore and tried to pull away as Teba smoothed the sticky feathers at the back of his head. Teba extended his wing to show him the blood staining his white feathers.

“Well, you hit it pretty good. What do you think you saw?” Teba sighed.

He pressed the wing against the cut to stop the bleeding. Harth inhaled sharply at the pressure on the open wound and rubbed at his eyes.

“I’m sure I was just seeing things...but I thought there was a light—a red beam—between Death Mountain and the castle.”

Teba glanced upward as though he was considering flying up to validate Harth’s claims, but Harth grabbed his wing.

“Everyone’s going to think we’re dead, and if you fly high enough to look and see if I’m right you probably _will_ die,” Harth hissed.

“Alright,” Teba agreed, staring at Harth with the kind of concern he hadn’t seen since the night he lost his wife.

“It’s not that bad,” protested Harth.

Teba offered him a wing and Harth took it to pull himself to his feet. As he stood, the world tilted nauseatingly and Teba caught him under his good wing to steady him.

“The bleeding has stopped, but I’m sorry to say it’s not good,” Teba told him grimly.

Harth clenched his beak and held his injured wing close, leaning more heavily into Teba than he intended to. The throbbing in his wing was terrible, but the pain in his head nearly made him sick. Harth pulled in a deep breath and clenched Teba’s wing.

“We need to get back.”

“Can you fly with that wing?”

“I doubt it.”

“We’ll walk,” said Teba as he steered Harth toward the road.

“Teba, you should just go. Get Mazli or Gesane,” he said, concerned that Teba might not be in any shape to haul him back to the village after his own inelegant landing.

“You’re bleeding and we’re not far from a monster colony. Bokoblins will smell you a mile off and you can barely lift a wing to defend yourself.”

Harth couldn’t disagree with his logic, though each footfall seemed to set his head throbbing...that and the morning light...and the ringing the he was sure was just inside his head...

Harth wasn’t entirely certain how long they had been walking as he squeezed his eyelids to slits to block out the harsh sunlight. He was growing dizzy as parched as Teba urged him on.

“C’mon Harth. One foot in front of the other and we’ll get there today,” Teba encouraged him.

“And if I just want to lie down?” Harth protested.

“Nope. Molli’s waiting for you.”

“Goddess, this was foolish,” said Harth, his voice catching a little at the thought of how close his little girl had come to becoming an orphan.

“This was necessary.”

“We accomplished nothing.”

“Shh,” hissed Teba as they approached the mossy ruins.

The the pale stones of the ruins swarmed with bokoblins who grunted and shrieked at each other in their guttural clamour. Whether it was in joy or anguish, Harth could not tell. Teba gripped him more tightly and hurried him on until they were well out of sight of the colony. Their accelerated pace left Harth winded and reeling by the time they stopped near a cluster of trees so Teba could adjust his weapons.

“I don’t think I can keep this up,” Harth panted, resting back against a tree as Teba straightened his quiver.

“I’ve never known you to complain so much.”

“That isn’t encouragement, Teba, and it’s not what I need. I’m trying to give you an honest assessment of the situation.”

“Is this you insisting again that I leave you to die?” snapped Teba.

“To die?” asked Harth incredulously, “no, I just think that you should—” 

A porcine screech cut the air. Evidently, the bokoblins had caught the scent of blood on the wind, and Harth could see them swarming through the woods in their direction.

“You didn’t bring your blade,” Teba admonished him.

“I hadn’t planned on needing it,” Harth responded, pure instinct forcing him back to his feet.

Teba drew his feathered edge and handed it to Harth before whipping his bow from his back. Three bokoblins descended upon them, hollering war cries and swinging their weapons in circles above their heads. Teba removed one from the equation with an arrow through the eye, while Harth managed to hold his own against a second. He deflected a few blows from a heavy wooden bat that was scarcely more refined than a log with a handle. Each parry sent shock waves through Harth’s body, the last one knocking him to the ground and warping the precious steel of the feathered edge. Certain that he was done for, for the second time that day Harth prepared himself to die. He could not say where the arrow that pierced the bokoblin’s throat had come from.

“Incoming!” came a shout from above.

Mazli and Gesane swooped in to help defeat the bokoblins that had joined the fray, their arrows distracting the newcomers and forcing a few into retreat. Teba positioned himself between Harth’s prone form and the horde, bokoblin’s squalling as they met their ends upon the tips of the warriors’ arrows.

“You were nearly too late,” Teba grumbled at Gesane and Mazli as he sheathed his damaged sword and helped Harth sit up against the tree.

“Sounds like we were just on time then,” said Mazli, landing beside them.

“We should go,” called Gesane from above, “we may have more company if we tarry.” 

Teba glanced to Harth and he rose shakily, holding himself upright with a wing against the sticky spruce bark. The fight had not improved Harth’s injuries or dizziness—rather the opposite. Though Harth wanted nothing more than to lie down, Teba pulled his wing over his shoulders and urged him onward. Mazli took the lead, walking through the forest ahead of them with his feathered edge in hand while Gesane circled upward to take stock of their surroundings.

“Octorock, in the woods,” Gesane called from the sky.

“Got it,” said Mazli and he picked up his pace to engage the pest.

“Teba, I can’t keep going,” Harth protested as soon as the guard was out of hearing range.

“You must...because if I have to carry you Mazli will never let you live it down.”

“I don’t care what Mazli thinks. I just need a moment to rest...”

“Look, it’s not so far. There’s the stable,” encouraged Teba.

As they reached the edge of the woods and the stable came into view, Harth heard the sound of familiar music drifting through the air.

“You hear that?” asked Teba.

“Sounds like Kass...”

As they reached the stable Gesane descended and Teba helped Harth rest on a stool near the cooking pot. Harth squeezed Teba’s wing with a shaking hand and hissed at his discomfort. Hearing the commotion, Kass ceased his playing and all heads turned to the newcomers.

“Goddess...we thought you had fallen to your deaths,” whispered Ariane, the stablehand.

“And you just went about the day as usual...” Teba said, his eyes coming to rest on the village guards, “and what took you two so long?”

“If you must know,” said Mazli, carefully stepping out of Teba’s wingspan, “we were trying to locate your bodies—don’t hit me!”

Harth held Teba’s wing as his friend lunged at Mazli.

“Teba, get a hold of yourself,” Kass scolded in a soft voice as he stepped into the fray.

“Stay out of this, Kass,” Teba snapped.

“Look at yourself,” Kass implored Teba, “you’re covered in blood. Is that how you want to return to your wife?”

“It’s mostly his,” Teba grumbled.

“Mazli, you should tell everyone that Teba and Harth are still with us,” Kass suggested.

Mazli nodded his agreement with a cautious glance at Teba, and took off toward the village.

“I’ll fetch some water,” said Ariane.

Still fuming, Teba stalked off behind the stable, no doubt to deal with his anger away from everyone else. Gesane glanced reluctantly around the stable yard and returned to his post on the bridge. As Harth held his aching head, Kass sat down beside him and took the bowl and cloth that Ariane brought back.

“Harth, might I help you?” Kass asked.

Harth looked up to see Kass holding the cloth expectantly.

“Knock yourself out,” Harth muttered, absently watching Ariane as she left the stable yard to speak to Gesane near the bridge.

Harth sucked in his breath as Kass gently wiped the blood and grit from the back of his head. The water began to turn colour as Kass dipped the cloth into it and Harth wondered how much his melanistic feathers had hidden.

“I was so sorry to hear of Antilli’s passing,” Kass said quietly.

Harth couldn’t even bring himself to respond to that right now; even hearing her name was somehow more raw than his physical injuries. Kass seemed to understand this unsaid pain and squeezed Harth’s shoulder, but Harth thought that this might feel somehow worse than Teba ignoring it.

“Why are you down here anyway? Your family misses you. Do they even know you’re back?” Harth asked, changing the subject and shrugging off Kass’s grip.

“I’m afraid if I return to them now...I won’t be able to finish what I’ve started...” Kass told him solemnly.

“What could be more important than you going back to your family?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“I was protecting the village!” Harth protested defensively, annoyed with Kass’s reticence. 

“This might be strange to say...but I have a sort of...preordained part in this...”

“That is a very strange thing to say. A part in what exactly?”

“There’s something on the way...”

“Goddess, I hope it’s help...”

“I can’t really explain—” 

And he didn’t have to, because Teba returned looking significantly less bloody, but still agitated.

“Let’s go, Harth. We don’t want the whole village coming down here. Kass?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t join you,” Kass said sadly.

“Fine, Gesane! Lend us a wing,” Teba called to the guard at the bridge, his patience as thin as Harth had ever seen it.

“Kass, whatever you’re doing...just be careful,” said Harth, letting Teba help him back to his feet.

“Take care of yourself. Please don’t mention I was here,” said Kass with an eternal sort of sadness that got under Harth’s feathers.

“I won’t bring it up, but I’m not going to lie if someone asks me directly,” Harth told him.

“I understand,” said Kass.

The sun had dipped low in the sky as they reached Gesane on the bridge and its light shone golden-orange off of Teba’s feathers. Teba pushed Harth in Gesane’s direction.

“Not so rough! What's wrong with you?” Harth protested.

“Go with Gesane.”

“Wait...where are you going?” Harth asked taking a step after him.

Teba’s eyes betrayed him as he glanced north.

“No,” said Harth shaking his head, “no, Teba, you can’t do it alone.”

“Well, I’m not going to get distracted by some light in the sky.”

“Teba...”

Tears built in Harth’s eyes as Teba gently wrapped a wing around the back of Harth’s neck and pressed their foreheads together. 

“Take care of them,” Teba whispered to him, his voice catching a little.

“Teba, don’t. You don’t need to do this.”

“Someone needs to.”

Harth wanted to screech in protest, but Teba squeezed the back of his neck and leapt from the bridge into the updraft over the lake. As Harth stared after Teba, praying this was not the last he would see of him, Gesane approached and offered his wing

“I’m fine, I’ll do it myself,” Harth snapped.

He shoved Gesane’s wing away and tried desperately not to think of a world where he was missing both his wife and closest friend. Though Harth had refused his assistance, Gesane silently accompanied Harth as they crossed the stacks. By the time they reached the village, the sky had grown purple with dusk and Saki met Harth and Gesane near the guard’s post.

“Where’s Teba?” she asked, her voice betraying her worry and anger.

“He’s going to try again,” Harth told her.

Harth could see the anger flash briefly on her face, though she tried to keep it private.

“Thank you, Gesane,” she said to dismiss the guard as eh took Harth by his good wing.

As the ascended the boardwalk, they passed Fyson; he sat dejectedly on a lower landing not speaking to anyone.

“What’s with him?” Harth asked.

“He probably just on edge, like everyone else,” said Saki.

She pointed ahead to where Huck and Verla stood in front of The Slippery Falcon arguing.

“Stop it, both of you! Go argue in the doorway of your own businesses!” Misa shooed them.

The other villagers they passed by made a point not to stare at Harth, though he could see their fears were revealed on their faces. He imagined between the blood and burns and his slide through the dirt he must have made for quite the pathetic sight.

“Where’s Molli?” Harth asked.

“I asked Amali to watch the children for the evening. Mazli made your injuries sound pretty serious.”

“I’m sure I’ve had worse.”

There was that emptiness again. It flowed from that place where Antilli should be standing and right through his body. In his mind’s eye he was always on the verge of collapsing into a blubbering heap where he stood. Saki covered his hand with hers, and Harth could see that she, too, was hurting in her friend’s absence.

“Hey, did Mimo leave?” Harth asked, changing the subject because he knew he could not endure the mention of his wife.

“Some time in the night,” said Saki, only too willing to take a step back from their pain.

“Coward.”

They had made it to Kass and Amali’s roost where the children slept soundly within. Amali stood next door by the cooking pot, her wings folded around herself as though she was keeping her insides from spilling out, and Harth felt a flash of anger toward Kass for leaving her like this while he did Goddess knows what at the stable. They stopped at the entrance to Amali’s roost, and glanced into the kitchen for her permission to enter.

“You can go in,” she said, the cooking fire sparkling in her eyes.

“Thank you,” he said, stepping into her roost. 

Harth pulled himself up into Amali’s hammock to see that Molli and Tulin were curled up together in Kass’s. Harth forgot his pain for a moment to brush his beak gently over his daughter’s head. She stirred but didn’t wake and Harth had to bite back the tears which sprang unexpectedly to his eyes when he thought of her mother.

“Oh, my little acorn. Sweet dreams,” he said softly, smoothing a ruffled feather on her cheek.

“Come Harth, you need rest,” said Saki.

Harth dropped to the ground as carefully as he could manage and Saki took his hand the way she had on that terrible night.

“She’s safe here for the night,” promised Amali, returning to her roost.

Harth nodded, unsure anyone could guarantee any kind of safety. He stepped back out into the boardwalk and Saki offered her wing in support. As they passed Laissa and Bedoli’s roost Harth could see Laissa holding a book, but but her eyes were focused on something in the distance. No one seemed untouched by the reality of Medoh’s power.

When they arrived home, Saki helped Harth settle himself against some cushions at the back of his roost. She cleansed and bandaged his wing in silence, and Harth tolerated it with relative stoicism, withdrawing it only when she came to a particularly painful bit. When she had finished, the silver moon had risen above the mountains and mesas which blocked so much of their view.

“I hate to ask, but do you have anything to take the edge off this?” Harth asked, the burn throbbing with the beat of his heart.

“I’m sorry, Mimo cleaned me out...” she apologized, settling down beside him.

“A coward _and_ a thieving bastard...”

They sat in silence for a moment, both feeling the weight of Teba’s absence. Without something on which she could focus her attention, Saki succumbed to the worry that was plaguing her and sucked in a tearful breath. Harth put his good wing around her and watched as the fireflies danced on the grass below while she wiped at her unshed tears.

“He can’t do it alone,” she said finally.

“No...but when does he listen to us?” said Harth, squeezing Saki’s shoulder.

He glanced down to the lamplight pouring from the stable far below and thought of Kass’s cryptic explanation.

“Perhaps help is on the way...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I hope you liked it! Thanks for sticking with me :) Even if you're reading this years after posting, I promise I will still enjoy comments if you have any ^^


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